THREADING, AN ANCIENT FORM OF HAIR REMOVAL

Threading is an ancient form of hair removal that is still widely practiced by many people in the Eastern part of the world. The very first time I had threading done on my face was when I was preparing for my wedding day. There was the final dress fitting, choosing the flowers for my wedding bouquet, choosing the kind of makeup, picking a hair style and all the many, many things that a bride needed to prepare for the big day. At the beauty salon, the hair stylist/makeup artist recommended that I had my whole face threaded so that the makeup would stay on better. In spite of being an Asian, it was the first time I've heard of threading. At this time, I really did not have much facial hair to speak of, but I gave it a try. The makeup artist pulled out a length of cotton thread, and started to twist it around her fingers and held one end with her teeth! Then she started to twist the thread over my face. I felt the thread running back and forth over my face, pulling out whatever peach fuzz I may have had. I did not think it was painful at all. It was the one and only time I had my face threaded.

Since then, I have had my upper lip waxed at a salon, as well as using home kits. I've bleached, plucked and tweezed. I've even used depilatory creams. All of these methods have been successful up to a point. With waxing, it does not pull out every strand of hair. Sometimes, a couple needed to be plucked or tweezed. Depilatory creams and bleaches were painful for me as I could feel them burning on my skin, leaving me red and raw. Now twenty years later, I started to look into threading again. But not for myself, rather for my pre-adolescent daughter who was starting to be conscious of what little facial hair she had. She wanted it bleached, or waxed or to use a depilatory cream. Knowing that her skin is super sensitive because of her age, I did not want to subject her skin to any harsh chemicals. A friend from India suggested that I had her face threaded. This friend came over to our house and threaded my daughter's upper lip. I was able to see for myself how threading works. As the thread was twisted and pulled along my daughter's upper lip, I saw how each hair was snagged in the crisscross of the threads and lifted from the roots. I could see tears spring up in my daughter's eyes. But my daughter bravely put up with the threading and was very, very pleased with the result. Threading removed the hairs from the roots, and did not harm her skin at all. She was only a little red for a few minutes.

In countries such as Taiwan and India, you can find women sitting on stools at street corners, just like any other street vendor, offering threading services. Threading is so cheap and very common there.

Here in the United States, it's not as easy to find a beauty salon that offers hair threading services. Americans are more familiar with waxing, shaving, bleaching and depilatory creams. Many Asians come to the U.S. thinking they can find threading in any salon, but find to their surprise and dismay that threading is almost unheard of. In big cosmopolitan cities like New York, Chicago or LA, you can find some salons that offer threading. In smaller cities, you're out of luck.

We live in one of the Midwestern states, and threading is not easily available here. Every time my daughter needed her upper lip threaded, I had to call my friend. She was very happy to do it for us, but I still felt that we were imposing on her. So we looked around for other options and finally found a product from http://www.facialhairthreading.com. The product, Epicare, is a pencil-sized device that picks up on the same principle of threading. However threading expertise is not needed as no thread is required. It is actually made up of a spring which pulls hair from the roots by snagging the hairs in the coils of the spring. It is very safe and natural as there are no chemicals involved and therefore, perfect for my daughter's sensitive skin.